By Ben Kerrigan-
The Metropolitan Police is reopening an investigation into breaches of Covid regulations at a Christmas party at Conservative Party HQ.
It follows a video of the gathering, where aides were invited to “jingle and mingle”, was published by the Sunday Mirror.
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Cops are also now investigating an event in Parliament on 8 December 2020.
According to the Guido Fawkes website, this event involved Conservative backbencher Sir Bernard Jenkin.
Sir Bernard(pictured) sits on the Commons Privileges Committee, which last month published a highly critical report about Mr Johnson.
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The Metropolitan police and the Thames Valley force will not be investigating alleged breaches involving Boris Johnson and others at Downing Street and at Chequers between June 2020 and May 2021.
Johnson last month called allegations that Bernard Jenkin attended a birthday drinks in parliament during Covid restrictions a “total contempt of parliament” and said he has “no choice” but to recuse himself from the panel.
The investigation into the gathering in parliament concerns an event on 8 December 2020 that became the focus of a furious Tory row involving Boris Johnson and Sir Bernard Jenkin, parliament’s most senior select committee chair and a former Tory deputy chair.
The event was reported by the Guido Fawkes website to have been the date of Jenkin’s wife’s birthday, with a “drinks party” held by Eleanor Laing, a Commons deputy speaker, in her office.
That event was a birthday party held for Baroness Jenkin – wife of senior Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin – in Parliament on 8 December 2020.
Johnson called on Jenkin, who was one of four Tories on the privileges committee who signed off a report into Johnson’s Partygate denials after a year-long inquiry, to resign on the eve of its publication.
The reopening of the investigation at the event in Conservative HQ meanwhile potentially plunges the Conservative party’s London mayoral campaign into fresh turmoil and comes after police considered footage from a video purporting to show revellers at the event during lockdown.
The video, which was obtained by the Mirror reveals Tory party workers drinking alcohol and dancing on 14 December 2020 at a gathering held by the campaign team of the unsuccessful London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey.
Among those who appear in the video is Ben Mallet, Bailey’s campaign director, who is now running the campaign for Mozammel Hossain, a barrister on the shortlist to be the Tory candidate at next year’s London mayoral election.
A Conservative party spokesperson said on Tuesday: “Senior CCHQ staff became aware of an unauthorised social gathering in the basement of Matthew Parker Street organised by the Bailey campaign on the evening of 14 December 2020.
“Formal disciplinary action was taken against the four CCHQ staff who were seconded to the Bailey campaign.”.
Mr Johnson – who stood down as an MP with a stinging attack on the committee – had accused Sir Bernard of “monstrous hypocrisy” if the allegations on the Guido Fawkes site are true.
Conservative MP Virginia Crosbie issued an apology for attending the event while Covid restrictions were in place.
The Ynys Mon MP confirmed the event took place but said she had not sent out any invitations.
The Met police investigated the December 2020 party at Tory HQ last year, after a picture emerged showing former London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey and Tory aides raising glasses besides buffet food, when indoor socialising was banned in the area.
In November, the Met said they were taking no further action against Mr Bailey or the others pictured t the party.
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